Chief please take this in a positive way, because that is how I mean it.

I was playing back in 1986 and 1 minute fights were not extremely rare for me. Perhaps I was more adventurous fighting warriors with less armor. Fights probably did last a little longer back then in general, but only because players did not know as much as they do now.
For example for offensive styles we have learned the longer the fight lasts the better the chance of losing. So most everyone runs there offensives 10-10=x now. Where back then players used lower offensive effort and activity levels, which lead to fights lasting a longer. We also didn't know exactly where or even that their were skills are in stats, so we valued Con and Strength more. Which lead us to putting more armor on warriors. All of those things and more that I haven't mentioned meant fights tended to last longer.

As for seeing warrior development in the fights. If I remember right their were more of what are considered crit statements earlier in warriors career back then, mainly because skill rating development was limited before ADM. When ADM came about and you could get higher skill ratings and I think RSI pushed back when you started seeing the crit statements till you achieved expert and higher. If I remember correctly Master and Advanced Master ratings came with the creation of ADM. I am not sure about Grandmaster, but Archmaster and Blademaster the first to achieve them got to name the rating didn't they?

I hope you stay, because you will see the development part, but probably not until you get a warrior into ADM.

Last edited by bubbaganoosh on Fri Feb 08, 2013 11:35 am; edited 1 time in total

ManagerrArchMaster Poster

Joined: Jul 12, 2002
Posts: 4127
Location: Omaha

Posted:
Mon Apr 18, 2011 5:21 am

Quote:

Why is nobody mentioning all the wonderful incredible maneuvers that have seemingly disappeared?

Because I think this might in your head--romanticizing the past from when you were younger and more impressionable. I don't think the fight messaging engine has really changed in pretty much forever. (Other than the pronoun/race messages and such) Once in a blue moon, a critical message may change slightly, but that's about it...

If you could find an old fight and post it, we might be able to see what you're talking about....

gentlebenArchMaster Poster

Joined: Aug 21, 2008
Posts: 3611
Location: Round Rock, Tx

Posted:
Mon Apr 18, 2011 7:15 am

When you read your fights looking for improvement you have to look at what your oppenent is doing but also what he isn't doing. I remember a PM conversation I had with Dectective Kellumbo (yes I did talk to him on the side, he is very good and I need to learn) and he mentioned after one of our ADM fights between Wee Beastie and one of his strikers and he said that he could tell the Wee Beastie's Parry was getting close to if not past the Master and the way he said he new this was because his striker was not throwing as many crits as he was used to seeing. So it makes me believe that as your guy gets more and more ratings you will see more and more crits but as your opponent gets more and more rating they start to cancel eachother out somewhat. You will still see crits just not as many and you will also see more crits negated by crits or a lesser crit that reads sort of normal if you don't know what to look for.

I do know that once I starting fighting Wee Beastie in ADM her fights were much more asteticlly pleasing to read with all the flowerery language. So be patient The_Chief, you will read all those really cool statements once you get to ADM. I do enjoy the regular statements on teh regular arena as well. You will still see crits in regular arena but remember that as your guy gets better so are your opponents.

I enjoy reading most of the results that come back to me. As far as being able to determine that a warrior is changing I have not had a problem with that since my return. Not only in skill learning or finding faves but even the subtleties of FE improvements come across to me in what I read. As far as TP goes I don't see a huge difference. I remember running them low/low and using parry so they would stand around flat footed. I think that was the real problem and why they nerfed it. If you want a total parry to be more exciting you just have to find the proper strats to achieve that. Parry isn't as strong as it was once you get around the FE your TP is (10-2). One other problem might be the damage done by certain weapons. I just had a 21-18-9-9-17-3-7 in plate and full helm killed in 5 or 6 hits from a scimitar( he had another loss in just 3 hits!). I have had a lot of warriors with good physicals go down while tanked up from just a couple of hits. makes you wonder sometimes why you even fill out the armor part of the strat sheet but, this is not too common. I also discovered in the last tourney that the battle axe is absurdly nasty against armored slower moving foes. Still, as far as the fight reads go I enjoy the skilled defensive warriors much more than the overwhelming offense. The real problem I have had in achieving that is you are asking a lot out of a roll up to make that happen. You need some extremes in both physicals AND skills. To wrap it up I am definitely not trying to say you are interpreting the WRONG way but it definitely does not concur with my return experience. I love this game in spite of the struggles I have had coming back.

I enjoy reading most of the results that come back to me. As far as being able to determine that a warrior is changing I have not had a problem with that since my return. Not only in skill learning or finding faves but even the subtleties of FE improvements come across to me in what I read. As far as TP goes I don't see a huge difference. I remember running them low/low and using parry so they would stand around flat footed. I think that was the real problem and why they nerfed it. If you want a total parry to be more exciting you just have to find the proper strats to achieve that. Parry isn't as strong as it was once you get around the FE your TP is (10-2). One other problem might be the damage done by certain weapons. I just had a 21-18-9-9-17-3-7 in plate and full helm killed in 5 or 6 hits from a scimitar( he had another loss in just 3 hits!). I have had a lot of warriors with good physicals go down while tanked up from just a couple of hits. makes you wonder sometimes why you even fill out the armor part of the strat sheet but, this is not too common. I also discovered in the last tourney that the battle axe is absurdly nasty against armored slower moving foes. Still, as far as the fight reads go I enjoy the skilled defensive warriors much more than the overwhelming offense. The real problem I have had in achieving that is you are asking a lot out of a roll up to make that happen. You need some extremes in both physicals AND skills. To wrap it up I am definitely not trying to say you are interpreting the WRONG way but it definitely does not concur with my return experience. I love this game in spite of the struggles I have had coming back.

You seem to have th WS down, that Inanna is nasty looking WS. Still considering whether or not to even try to givr her another loss. I do not see to many more of those in her future.

Why is nobody mentioning all the wonderful incredible maneuvers that have seemingly disappeared?

Because I think this might in your head--romanticizing the past from when you were younger and more impressionable. I don't think the fight messaging engine has really changed in pretty much forever. (Other than the pronoun/race messages and such) Once in a blue moon, a critical message may change slightly, but that's about it...

If you could find an old fight and post it, we might be able to see what you're talking about....

I went back and looked at my dad's fights from over 20+ years ago and compared them with a few of my recent fights and I have to say that I'm not really seeing what you are talking about.

Every line starts with the warriors name, but apart from that, I'm seeing essentially the same product. As Manager mentions, perhaps an example would help us better understand what you are talking about.

_________________Master Darque

Darque Knights -- 20
Darque Forces -- 47
Darque Ages -- 81

DarqueArchMaster Poster

Joined: Jun 21, 2002
Posts: 2392
Location: Virginia

Posted:
Mon Apr 18, 2011 2:39 pm

Another question I forgot to ask, how long did you play long ago before you went on hiatus? I think I read that you have been back for 3 months now? Is this correct?

_________________Master Darque

Darque Knights -- 20
Darque Forces -- 47
Darque Ages -- 81

gentlebenArchMaster Poster

Joined: Aug 21, 2008
Posts: 3611
Location: Round Rock, Tx

Posted:
Mon Apr 18, 2011 3:10 pm

Darque wrote:

Managerr wrote:

Quote:

Why is nobody mentioning all the wonderful incredible maneuvers that have seemingly disappeared?

Because I think this might in your head--romanticizing the past from when you were younger and more impressionable. I don't think the fight messaging engine has really changed in pretty much forever. (Other than the pronoun/race messages and such) Once in a blue moon, a critical message may change slightly, but that's about it...

If you could find an old fight and post it, we might be able to see what you're talking about....

I went back and looked at my dad's fights from over 20+ years ago and compared them with a few of my recent fights and I have to say that I'm not really seeing what you are talking about.

Every line starts with the warriors name, but apart from that, I'm seeing essentially the same product. As Manager mentions, perhaps an example would help us better understand what you are talking about.

I remember really clever statements and actual flips (my sz6 TP did a triple flip, so cool) in the fools tourney back in those days, but that was tourney only.

LOLOL. Well, I don't know who you are, but I LIKE you. And to add fuel to the fire, here's my input:

I support your ideas, but who will your ideas be more enjoyable for? You? Me? The handful of basic-only players? The game has changed. The Duelmasters that existed in the 80s no longer exists. It's all about tournament play for most players. The current game is still fun, but in a very, very different way

The_Chief wrote:

As I got extreme pleasure from reading the Spymaster's reaction

The hands-down best memory of DM from the 80s were the customized spyreports.

The_Chief wrote:

... I suggest cutting down the arenas. They did it once because it needed to be done, and just as the WBA and other pro-sports have realized, sometimes contraction is necessary. Yes, some people might be upset ...

This will never fly. Too many people enjoying the free fights and lack of competition. Easier to graduate and keep your tournament warriors alive in a virtually vacant arena.

The_Chief wrote:

ARE we in the minority? I think if we were, we wouldn't see 81 as the most populated, most played arena in the game.

Yes, you're still in the minority, big time. Almost everyone in 81 plays elsewhere too, including tournaments.

The_Chief wrote:

Yes, things change, but they should change for the better, not the worse, especially when the fights have shrunk in size (and I'm talking about ALL fights). ALL my fights used to be (looking over my old fights right now), I'm guesstimating ~4.5 minutes long on the average. Now, in my most recent turn, I did receive one TPvsTP fight which lasted 10 minutes, but the description of it was as a "boring gory fight." Uh, boring? AND gory? The longer fights are more fun. They just are.

See, this is where we differ in opinion. And that's okay. What's fun for me doesn't have to be fun for you, etc. etc. - I find long scummy fights really boring. I like short exciting fights with back and forth action. Two or three minutes is perfect.

I played in 86/87 and remember the fights being much longer too. Back then though, most players viewed CON as valuable, even for offensives. Now, how many strong, fast warriors do we see with really low CON? A lot. Stronger, faster warriors + low CON = shorter fights.

Regarding the line-by-line descriptions, yeah, those were better back then. I remember reading them on paper that was connected and perforated, and printed on a dot-matrix printer.

As Gentleben said in his post, ADM is a lot more exciting to read. If you have any ADM warriors and aren't fighting them, you should start. It's more "old school", if you will. And by old school, I mean REAL old school, like from the 80s. Not the "we're calling it old school, but what we really mean is no tournaments because we don't truly want old school and we'll still freak out if we don't get terrablood's style info on the internet for all the opponents in our arena" version.

The_Chief wrote:

Again, remember I'm trying to talk about a good business model here. Let's talk about Pay-per-View fights, because thats' something which is similar in many ways to what we're dealing with. When people pay $40 to watch a championship bought, they are REALLY pissed when it's a 30 second fight!! In the UFC Championship fights are 5 rounds not 3. UFC rounds are 5 minutes, not 3, and MMA is the fastest growing sport in the world, and continues to be so for ~the 5th consecutive year. Do you think their rounds being longer, the action more varied, and them showing more fights than boxing on PPV? and the growth in popularity is by sheer coincidence?

I see your point, but longer isn't necessarily better (insert joke here). For me, it's the intensity. Two or three minutes of intense back and forth fighting is faaaaar more enjoyable for me to read than 18 minutes of standing around in full battle rattle.

The_Chief wrote:

What' I'm trying to do is give a businessman's advice (for the very little it's worth, I was the original owner of what is now Hulu.com

I used to love hulu.

The_Chief wrote:

I can't help but think I'm not the only guy who has come back and found the game to be so different and not nearly as much fun as it was. I'm willing to put my own time into trying to improve it, or I wouldn't be in this particular forum.

I appreciate your effort, and know many others do too. Despite some of the condescending comments made, the DM community is a pretty good group of knuckleheads. Ultimately, we all want the same thing, right? We all want an enjoyable game to play. We just enjoy different aspects of the game.

Why is nobody mentioning all the wonderful incredible maneuvers that have seemingly disappeared?

Because I think this might in your head--romanticizing the past from when you were younger and more impressionable. I don't think the fight messaging engine has really changed in pretty much forever. (Other than the pronoun/race messages and such) Once in a blue moon, a critical message may change slightly, but that's about it...

If you could find an old fight and post it, we might be able to see what you're talking about....

I went back and looked at my dad's fights from over 20+ years ago and compared them with a few of my recent fights and I have to say that I'm not really seeing what you are talking about.

Every line starts with the warriors name, but apart from that, I'm seeing essentially the same product. As Manager mentions, perhaps an example would help us better understand what you are talking about.

I have to agree with Darq. I played initially from 86-90, before returning and playing steadily (although small budget) since 1999. I don't remember a whole lot of real crazy stuff happening. I had a fair amount of short fights, too, although not as many on average as now, but I think that's been explained already quite accurately as being due to the evolution of the game's styles and the super-fine tuning of all the offensive styles in particular.

I've been in your shoes before, too. There are some threads of mine about renaming the game and general revival/drumming up of business for RSI, and about adding new crit statements and things like that.

What you have to realize is that, if you looked at the thread where we had an interactive chat with RSI, they revealed that Duelmasters, or rather D2, is actually a pretty steady revenue stream for them. It may not be growing, but it's steady and apparently dependable, at least in comparison to their other ventures. So they don't feel a driving need to change much of anything, I think, to keep constantly pleasing the players. There are enough hardcore managers who like it more or less the way it is and really don't want to see a lot of aspects changed because they've got the current state of things "figured out," and have invested massive time and money in getting to where they are in the system.

RSI makes changes to the code VERY CAREFULLY AND VERY SLOWLY IF AT ALL. And any change they make, no matter how small, always has its opponents too. And when they make a change they don't always broadcast it out there to us, either, we have to figure it out.

Keep in mind too that the creator of the game is no longer involved with the company and there is some sort of stand-off/conflict there over certain things, like taking the game fully online, which may hinder changes as well.

I have to say I really don't think anybody's responses to you have been condescending, and I hope mine does not come off as such either. Perhaps it's just that you're not used to the personalities and the general tone on these boards, I don't know. I think everybody's been trying to give you good advice and make valid points as to why things are the way they are.

I don't want to scare you off, we as a community DO need all the new and returning managers we can get, but I felt the need to comment and tell you this kind of thing has been said and done before and to no avail.

The game of the 80's is gone, but in its wake is a still very alive, very competitive game that has been honed and focused and split in two (arena and tourney) by those who still play, and it takes some adjusting to. Good luck and hope you stick around!

1st -- I apologize if I sounded condescending. Not my aim at all; I doubt if anyone means to come off that way. If I've offended you, I regret it. Please forgive me.

2nd -- Okay, so NOW everyone is fully aware of where you're coming from. This game isn't much like what it used to be 25 years ago, and you're not happy about it. You cite many reasonable observations. It has nothing to do with ability or game-playing, but rather dynamics of the game itself. Essentially, what's bothering you is something none of us players has any control over whatsoever.

3rd -- You have some good ideas, and can doubtless generate others. You are willing to contribute to RSI to "remediate" this problem. This is the sort of thing best be brought up in a face to face discussion with the RSI staff. Video conferencing if nothing else. You're willing to offer suggestions (well, who isn't? ) and contribute free labor and time to help make the game more attractive / entertaining, and therefore more lucrative. Good! All good...

4th -- In the (almost) 2 years I've been back, I've read NUMEROUS posts on proposed game changes, tweaks, etc., ranging from ads in sci-fi magazines to programming changes in the game itself, and everything in-between. Generally some very good ideas have been brought forward. Your suggestions are practical; your reasoning is plausible. However, I am skeptical of any sweeping changes taking place anytime soon. I haven't seen any move or indication coming from RSI from my limited vantage point, and I've diligently researched the old posts in the forums when I first arrived -- change is not something RSI is fond of. I hope that you will present your ideas to RSI in a formal and serious way, and I hope they take you up on at least some of them! But I am not optimistic about it.

5th -- As I said, I'm down to just one arena, though ironically I can NOW better afford to run the five teams I played 20 years ago. There just seems no point... but that's another thread. I would recommend Hyborean War, if you're not acquainted with it. Military strategy strongly tempered via the Conan saga; I suspect you'd enjoy it. I'm into that sort of thing myself (though I was in the Navy...) and we're putting together a game now with D-2 players, primarily, who are naive infants at this game. If nothing else, please join up with us and just play this Hyborean War game with us. You play D-2 for fun, and if it's not giving you what you want out of it, I can certainly understand if you walk away. Okay. But fun comes in different packages. If D-2 isn't working for you and RSI ends up politely rejecting your proposals, please, please join up with us in Hyborean War and get a taste of another game you might fancy. It's difficult, somewhat complex, and it's fun!

And who knows? Maybe you are in a privileged position where you CAN influence RSI and make some pivotal changes. You have some experience with computer-based companies and large-scale effects in business. Great! If you can make some changes, do so. Most of the D-2 community will root for you, but we've seen a lot of bloody bodies dragged off of the sands, so be prepared for a struggle.

Whatever happens, good luck to you! For an Army guy, you don't sound too disappointing...

Semper Fi!

The Arcane Kid

_________________"Don't make me destroy you." -- Darth Vader

The ConsortiumArchMaster Poster

Joined: Nov 23, 2002
Posts: 9283
Location: on the golf course, in the garden, reading, traveling, and now Consulting

Posted:
Tue Apr 19, 2011 1:42 am

Several more thoughts .....
1. Like others mentioned, we have been around since the mid eighties and do not recall reading fights that read differently. Seems the same to us (except the Fool's Tourney comments) and the loger they go after 2 or 3 minutes, the more boring they are, and the less they are read. (Although we DO enjoy scummin' other managers!)
2. Closing/combining arenas is not an answer that will help anything.
3. This is a great discussion topic.
4. The cost to play hasn't changed in umpteen million years. (Well, it does cost more to mail them an envelope.)
5. It is the same great game, with very minor mods to the basic game. However, probably most of the current clientel enjoy the tournament/sandbagging/skill plethora/prizes/massive warrior ownership game more than the arenas. The best places to enjoy arenas are the throwback arenas (2), the arenas with events (like DM47) and select active roleplaying/fighting arenas. (like Lapur, Sunset, Aruak City and a few others.) Certain other folk do enjoy the very small arenas.
6. I am not sure that we read one condescending word in this thread - merely opinions, offerings of help, and comments. (Some different opinions than our own or other writers.) If WE said anything to hurt anyones feelings, we apologize. It was not intentional.